by Matt Larkin
Certainly he could not fight Wolfsblood and his army even if the man were not a varulf as Sigmund now suspected. Who was the bitch he had killed? A relative of the king? His mother, perhaps—she certainly seemed old enough. Or maybe Wolfsblood simply had an arrangement with the varulfur dwelling in these woods. Had Sigmund and his brothers thus been an offering?
None of his questions mattered, though, not while he remained weak and bound.
Soft footfalls scraped on the forest floor, drawing his eye. Sigmund crept to the edge of the cave and there found Sieglinde turning about, burdened by a heavy pack.
“Sister?”
She spun, then spotted the low entrance to his cave, nestled between rocks. “Sigmund! By Odin, I knew it had to be you!”
She knelt, and he helped her slide down into the cave.
“How did you find me?”
“I heard the clanking and followed the sound.”
Sigmund glanced down at his manacles and shrugged. “With proper tools I could remove the spoke binding them, but I have only rocks.”
“Oh. Damn, I didn’t think of … Sorry.” She upended her satchel, dropping torches, flint, steel, knives, and—gods!—food. Salted boar meat, which Sigmund snatched up and tore into with relish. “Odin’s beard, brother. Take it slow, lest you vomit it all back out.”
Ravenous, he didn’t bother to respond. The meat was dry and tough, which stopped him from eating as quickly as he wished. Probably a boon, really.
“There’s mead, too.”
The thought of aught made from honey churned his stomach, but he was so thirsty after all …
His sister handed him a skin of the stuff, and he sipped it, trying not to think of the gods-damned wolf. Finally, he wiped his mouth, panting. “You have certainly saved my life.”
Sieglinde sat frowning, hand over her belly. Where Wolfsblood had planted his brood in her. Odin damn that bastard.
“It is difficult for me to leave the fort for long,” his sister said after a moment. “But when next I come, I will bring tools and more food.”
“Wolfsblood …?”
“I … I could not stop him from going to Hunaland. He knows Mother would come after him when she learns what he had done.”
Indeed, and Sigmund had heard rumors of Mother’s witchcraft. He prayed it would be enough to forewarn her of danger now, for he could do naught to aid her from across the sea.
“I’m going to kill him. However long it takes, I will find a way.”
Sieglinde hesitated, then brushed a hand over his cheek. “I pray to Frigg you will. But, brother, promise me one thing—do not strike prematurely. You will have but one chance to avenge our family. We cannot afford to squander it.”
That he knew well enough. He would wait and regain his strength. Perhaps even allow a few more winters to pass. With each, he grew larger and stronger. And soon, he would have the power he needed to strike down the king.
“I must go,” Sieglinde said.
“Wait—what of Gramr?”
“Wolfsblood has set it as his trophy now, hanging above his throne. I cannot claim it without my duplicity being discovered. We might lose our best chance.”
Sigmund ground his teeth. That bastard had done all this over the runeblade, hadn’t he? Gramr had brought this hardship upon the Volsungs. But she would bring worse yet upon Wolfsblood and his brood. Sigmund would see to that.
“Go then. And bring me another weapon when you return.”
In the mean time, he could use the knives to fashion a bow. A start. His would be a long war. And if Siggeir Wolfsblood thought all the Volsungs dead, it would be a war the king would never see coming.
35
The years of waiting had dragged on. Though nine years had not yet passed, Odin found himself drawn ever back toward the deep forge beneath the Sudurberks. Loki trailed behind him, lost in thought or in melancholy, Odin could not say. In either case, he supposed he understood. For millennia, Loki had born the burdens that Odin had carried mere decades, and perhaps, Odin thus should not judge him harshly. He could not, in fact, imagine the life his blood brother must have led, watching eras pass and his loved ones die over and over while he yet endured.
They had come a long way over the winter to reach this place now, and soon, they would pass beyond, into Outer Miklagard. And from there, into the strange realm of the vampires.
Odin carried his own torch through the dark tunnel, no longer bothered by the odd way Volund’s domain seemed to suppress all illumination. Still, the moving shadows did make the hair on his arms stand on end. This place was close to the Otherworlds somehow, as if the Veil grew thin here.
Maybe that was exactly what happened. Everything on the other side was too close in this place.
The dead …
Yes, the dead. Life and death—and the connection between them—meant everything. All the winding paths of the future, the course of urd, led back to those two things. For Odin and for Loki both. And if Odin judged his brother too harshly? Loki was Hel’s father and part of him must still love her, even as he hated what she had become.
Damn it.
Odin fell short before the forge entrance, letting his blood brother catch up. “I could see myself in your position, almost.”
Loki grunted, then shook his head. “No. You cannot, though I appreciate the sentiment.”
Odin looked hard into Loki’s eyes, but the man gave so little away. Odin had to believe that, in the end, they wanted the same things. To save the world from Ragnarok … He had to let himself believe that. “What I am now, urd necessitates, brother. If I am to trust in you, you too must accept what I have been forced to become.”
“I have always accepted you, Odin. If I offer guidance, it is in the hopes you might not fall prey to the same mistakes I have made. Immortality gives one long to regret one’s failings and missteps.”
“Which is why I have to see more than I now do. You once told me, the answers I sought were out there. The Well of Urd allowed me to see my past lives. Now, I must see our world and its future. I must, or creation dies.”
Loki sighed. “I know the feeling all too well. But consider yourself forewarned of the danger of this obsession.”
Odin shook his head. Even when he tried to make amends between them … No. He was tired of arguing. Maybe they were too alike, in the end. With a jerk of his head, he beckoned Loki to follow into the forge.
As before, they were greeted to the sound of hammer falls and to sparks shooting off metal as Volund worked yet another of his crafts. From the look of it, he now fashioned a mount for the back of the throne. Some sort of decoration? Nearby rested large ivory-looking … dragon teeth?
Odin opened his mouth, then shut it. Objecting to Volund’s artistic embellishments to the throne was pointless. The svartalf worked his craft as much to enhance his own reputation as for the payment, and he would settle for naught less than stunning in all he wrought.
The smith paused in hammering, though he did not look up. “It must seep in the power. The nine years are not yet passed.”
“I wanted to see your progress in any event.”
Volund grumbled, a sound not unlike the low anger of a snow bear about to leap into violence. The svartalf glanced from Odin to Loki—who now stood staring into the flame—and back, sneering at both. Finally, he mumbled something Odin could not make out and, snatching up a cane, hobbled over across his forge. On the far side, he jerked a woven tarp away to reveal the foundations of a fine wrought chair. Its frame was all orichalcum, delicately engraved with runes and geometric designs that wove into an endless knot-work pattern.
Odin walked around the seat, marveling. The back of it had a slot for the mount Volund now crafted, which would, in turn, allow him to insert the dragon fangs. The oversized armrests looked like snarling wolf heads, set with rubies for eyes. And from within, Odin could almost feel the souls screaming in their agony, seeking escape from the torment the smith had bound them in.
Ha
nd hovering a breath above the chair, Odin could not quite bring himself to touch it. This, like aught else Volund wrought, combined the extremes of beauty and depravity into a perfect symbiosis, a macabre work of art from which one could not look away.
“Pain is its own beauty,” Volund said, as if reading Odin’s mind—a sensation Odin found all the more foul coming from this creature. “And the jotunn souls absorbed by Mjölnir have provided all the power and pain you might ever hope for. Hmm. I wonder, does the hammer’s wielder even know that is why you have him killing jotunnar?”
Odin fixed Volund with a level gaze. The svartalf drank in suffering and lies like mead, but Odin owed him no explanation. He had paid the smith in orichalcum for the throne and in an even more precious commodity for the hammer.
Obviously realizing he would get no answer, Volund snorted. “In any event, the throne needs a few more souls and time to saturate in the power. And the Ordrerir. Have you brought the blood?”
Odin shook his head. “We are on the way there now.”
“Then your visit is premature, human, and I do not welcome interruptions. So be gone from here, lest I become tempted to forge something from your soul.”
Under a blood oath to craft on Odin’s behalf, Volund would do no such thing. But Odin had naught to gain by arguing with the svartalf.
“No,” Loki said. “No …”
They both turned to look at Odin’s blood brother, who now leaned closer and closer into the raging fire of Volund’s forge.
“Damn it.” He stood there, shaking his head. “Sigyn.”
Odin frowned. One did not oft see Loki so discomfited. Perhaps the man had been so preoccupied with the schism grown between them, he had neglected to look hard enough into the fates of his own family. Or perhaps his wife had now crossed some line—or soon would—which might place her in more immediate peril.
The man jerked away from the flames and strode purposefully toward the exit.
Odin followed Loki from the forge, ignoring Volund’s chuckles—the bastard probably enjoyed seeing Loki in distress. “Do you require assistance?” The words slipped out before Odin even realized he’d meant to speak. Perhaps, despite all that had passed, they could one day get back to the ease and trust that had existed between them. Or, perhaps, even without it, they yet remained brothers, bound to each other by their blood oaths.
Loki paused, then shook his head. “There is naught to be done.” The man looked like his heart would rend in two. “Not now, but we must make haste. I must go to her as swiftly as I am able.”
“Then let us tarry no longer.”
Loki nodded and strode off toward the south. “Beyond these mountains we can reach the sea. Many ships sail for Miklagard in summer. We must be on one.”
Indeed.
And they went together. So maybe there was hope. Maybe, despite the lies and deceptions, despite Loki’s daughter, Odin could still remain true to his brother. He could … hope.
36
Eighteen Years Ago
“She called you Father.” Odin leaned against a tree, watching his blood brother struggling to rise.
Loki groaned as he sat up. He rubbed his face and when he looked up, Odin could have almost sworn the man seemed ready to break. Loki, whom naught on Midgard ever seemed to truly shake, was breaking. His hands shook, his jaw trembled—ever so slightly.
“I …”
“So,” Odin said. “It’s true. I do not understand how, but it’s true.”
Loki sat very still for several moments before looking to Odin, his crystal eyes now seeming hollow and laced with pain almost beyond measure. “Svarthofda spoke truth enough … in this era, she was the first sorceress. But you and I know the world has ended before, as it must one day end again.”
“No!” Odin shook his head and stabbed an accusing finger at Loki. “No, I will win Ragnarok. Whatever has gone before, I will end this.”
Loki sighed, folding his legs beneath himself and then placing the back of his hands upon his knees. “You have tried that before.”
What? As the lives he had led in past eras? As Naresh? Had Odin then too been so certain he could break the cycle and stop the spread of chaos once and for all? It mattered naught what he had done before, though. What mattered was only what he would do now. “You change the subject as if I might somehow be misdirected from the significant detail that Hel called you Father.”
Loki shut his eyes a moment before staring at Odin. “My daughter died long eras back … and had she not touched the Art maybe … maybe that would have been the end of it. Instead, she endured in Niflheim. And there, in time, she usurped the power of the first goddess of mist.”
The image of strangling Loki flashed through Odin’s mind again. Now, at last, it began to make a terrible and irrevocable sense. For how could the father of his greatest enemy truly be his ally? Odin, a father, knew well what lengths a man would go to for his own children. No matter what else might befall them, some part of Loki would never let go of Hel. For that, Odin could not blame him, but then, neither could he ever again endow the man with his full trust.
The avalanche of urd continued.
It tore from him his greatest ally. It stole from him his family, those of birth and those of choice. Until, at last, it would leave him alone to face the final battle.
And if his vision could not be prevented, then perhaps, neither could the doom of gods Svarthofda had just spoken of. Perhaps, bereft of allies, he was destined to lose Ragnarok. Or if Loki was correct, even should he win, it would only perpetuate a cycle of destruction and death that had spun out more times than he could know.
“Do not turn from me now,” Loki said.
“How can I do otherwise? What choice remains to me?”
“I could not tell you sooner, brother. I—”
Odin held up a hand. “You lied to me. By omission, perhaps, but I cannot imagine a greater omission.”
“I can still aid you, Odin.” Loki looked up at the streaming night sky, then shook himself.
“How? How can I accept aid from a man I can no longer trust nor rely on?”
“I can help you find Andvari. I have heard tales of this dverg and his workings. You know well I have a gift for finding even those who would prefer not to be found.”
Odin lowered his chin to his chest and clenched his fists at his sides. The hours waiting for Loki had given him long to think on that, after all. Svarthofda claimed Andvari had made a ring to pass between worlds, but now he feared to use his own creation, and thus hid himself away even from his own kin. Without other leads, Odin might search long years to find a hermit dverg. Neither Odin, nor Freyja, nor Midgard could afford those years.
Maybe, in the end, even seeing urd, he could not veer from the course it had set before him. In her way, the sorceress had claimed the Norns sat upon the thrones of fate. And Odin must live his.
He sighed. “So let us find the dverg.”
Loki nodded and rose. “I will. I swear it.”
Odin too stood, his back aching as he did so. Loki moved to go, but Odin forestalled him with a hand on his chest. “I have loved you as much as either of my own true brothers. And still, I cannot see before us a future in which we long remain allies.”
Though Odin had expected Loki to jerk away, the man instead grabbed his wrist. “The future is a winding river, brother. You do not always see all you think you see, and a sudden turn may yet surprise you.”
And then Loki released him and trekked on, into the snow.
37
“So then,” Sigmund said, “how are we to breach the castle without fighting our way past so many berserkir?”
Fitela sat against the wall around town, staring at the lapping waves. Whatever his nephew dwelt on, he kept it to himself.
Sigmund flung a rock into the sea. “Olof’s raids will not keep Wolfsblood’s forces busy much longer. These women risk undoing all we have worked for. If I cannot force Wolfsblood to face me directly, everything—Gylfi,
killing the varulfur, it is all for naught.”
Still, Fitela sat there, staring. And why not? Why should the boy be responsible for coming up with a plan? Much as Fitela claimed to want to avenge his grandfather, this was his father they moved against. It was Sigmund’s place to enact Volsung’s vengeance, and he was failing.
Despite everything, despite all Sigmund had done to prepare, Wolfsblood somehow remained a step ahead. The king might not even know Sigmund lived, true, but he had somehow arranged to protect himself with better than an army. Two varulfur could not overcome eleven berserkir. Where did that leave them?
“How does a wolf fight a bear?” Fitela asked.
“What?”
The young man finally turned to look at him. “How would a wolf fight a bear, assuming it had to?”
Sigmund threw up his hands then folded his arms across his chest. “Let the pack stalk it, surround it. Wear it down. And you’d still lose a lot of wolves.”
“How would a couple of lone wolves do it?”
“They wouldn’t.”
“Right,” Fitela stood. “They’d just avoid the gods-damned bear.”
Sigmund rolled his eyes.
“So we go around the bears. Sneak past them. Forget openly challenging the king.”
“But—”
His nephew shrugged. “It was probably never going to work. But if you were to break into his chamber in the middle of the night, with none of his guards around, I imagine he’d fight you then. He’d have to.”
“And now we’re murderers, liars, and assassins.” Sigmund slumped down into the spot Fitela had vacated. Was this what it took to avenge Father? Was it even what the great Volsung would have wanted? Or maybe Father would have looked upon his heirs in shame. Sigmund had not only failed to avenge him after so many years, but he had sacrificed his honor.
Fitela spat. “I didn’t say kill him in his sleep. By all means, let the king have a chance to fight back if it so matters to you. But decide here and now … uncle. How much is your vengeance worth to you?”